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Possible revenue theft at MBTA parking lots could run into millions
By adamg on Fri, 07/29/2016 - 10:08am
CommonWealth Magazine reports the MBTA has forwarded its files on what initially seemed to be minor revenue discrepancies at T parking lots operated by LAZ to the state Attorney General's office now that it's "blossomed into losses at multiple lots that some estimate could run into the millions of dollars."
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Comments
Parking
Ive always wondered about weekend parking. At my station I see people still pay on weekends even though there's no enforcement. So on Monday the collector could pull $8 or $12 out of the parking slot box rather than just the $4 for Monday. Easy money if they opt to pocket some.
What slot box? I thought the
What slot box? I thought the T replaced all slot boxes with pay-by-phone over a year ago. The only slot boxes I've seen have been a few town-owned lots at commuter rail stations.
Workers Stealing skimming
Workers Stealing skimming money from these state owned MBTA parking lots are you fucking kidding me, the money the MBTA pays these workers and still they want more of it..
No wonder why the MBTA has to raise fares..
Brass ones
Why would any worker in Greater Boston do anything upon the assumption that their supervisors are idiots? I mean, T management might not exactly be a bunch of Warren Buffetts, but for Chrissakes, I think they can count cars and do multiplication.
50% of the country
is voting for Trump. It's a pretty good bet, statistically, that ANYONE you encounter is an idiot at any point, in any situation. Con men and scam artists wouldn't exist if such a large portion of the population wasn't comprised of rubes.
And 50% are voting for Hillary
Making 100% of Americans off their friggin rockers. Except of course for those among us voting for Stein or Johnson. They may not win, but at least they have principles and ethics.
Thanks
I needed a laugh.
When you compare them
side by side, its not even close. Hillary voters do not necessarily like her or trust her, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see she is obviously the better choice, by every single standard In fact, every talking point the Trumpsters have against Hillary can be DIRECTLY attributed to their candidate, it boggles my mind.I am likely not voting for her, but I wouldn't check the box for Trump with a gun to my head, it is literally a referendum on ignorance. I think it is some kind of experiment to see how much BS you can shovel at the American electorate without causing an armed revolution.
During WW2 the US and UK worked with Russia because despite their differences in ideology, none of those parties were trying to take over the world and commit genocide on entire races of people. To me, this election is no different.
A request from ye moderator
I know, I'm being mean and stuff, but can we try not to make every discussion from now until November about the presidential election? At the risk of turning away the vast number of page views that will make me rich beyond compare, there are better places to talk about things that are not directly related to Boston.
Incidentally, how much do you
Incidentally, how much do you make per page view? I've always wondered how close this is to being able to make a living off it?
I should know
But I've never figured it out. Also varies from day to day. At the end of the month, it is a living.
Thank you Adam for stating this
And, at least IMO, you are hardly being mean and stuff. As I alluded to in my responses to a recent post, the MSM (including local stations) has been forcing this presidential election down our throats since before New Hampshire had their primary. The last we need is to have it take over our local blog as well.
In case you didn't notice
This is a major news story. Their job is to report the news. If you don't like it, here's a suggestion: Turn off the TV!
Its a depressing and sad
Its a depressing and sad situation this republic is faced with. Pick your poison. I'm already look forward to 2020(if this country exists by then) where we can have a moderate Democrat and Republican who will fix this mess.
This country has seen worse.
The Civil War almost destroyed it. It was a really close thing, it could have gone either way half a dozen times.
The Second World War, if the Soviets hadn't pushed from the east to Germany (they were pissed) would have lost Europe, then eventually we would have been attacked, from both sides.
We survived two (!) terms of the Lightbringer, hey, say what you want but there were folks that believed we couldn't survive one term.
Trump? That administration will be kept in check by a suddenly invigorated and attentive press.
Hillary? She'll get along just fine.
She'll lease the USS Harry S Truman to the Russians for $2 mill and a contribution to her charitable organization.
For a bit more, she'll throw in the crew.
Bring back zombie President Reagan and zombie Tip O'Neill.
"I'm already look forward to
"I'm already look forward to 2020(if this country exists by then)"
I've been saying "I'm already looking forward to..." since 2004 (which was only the second presidential election I was old enough to vote in). Good luck with that.
'Think of how stupid the
'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.' - George Carlin.
George Carlin was obviously not a statistician
Bell curve, standard deviation and all that.
I'm not sure
But I think it might have something to do with the "millions of dollars" referenced above. Just a hunch.
And furthermore
I know you're not new around here... I think the question is, why would any state worker assume that their supervisor *isn't* some combination of stupid, lazy or avaricious?
That seems to be the case far more often than it isn't, as this article indicates with crystal clarity.
I mean, really? Parking lot revenue? This isn't exactly new technology. The workers have probably been skimming the till for decades.
I mean, I'm not new
I regard my community as one where the dumbest guy is still much smarter than the dumbest guy in a lot of other places.
Well...
I think you might want to re-think that particular piece of statistical analysis, professor. The fact that there may be a bunch of smart people working in universities, hospitals and tech companies doesn't actually raise the intelligence level of anybody else by osmosis.
Even if it were true, there's still plenty of room for laziness and avarice at the table.
Oh, I dunno...
"I regard my community as one where the dumbest guy is still much smarter than the dumbest guy in a lot of other places."
I just watched my really smart college educated neighbor pour 3/4 of a bag of Kingsford's finest into his grill. On his deck. Attached to the house. Six feet off the ground.
Show him the article from last week
You know, the one where the 13 units burned in Charlestown? Apparently started by a rocket scientist grilling on the deck. Gas line or something failed = 13 families without a home.
LAZ is a private company, you
LAZ is a private company, you know, privatization is the solution. Look how well it works on the commuter rail. Wait till Bakie gets done privatizing more and more of the MBTA (but not state police, they vote republican), all the MBTA will be as successful as the commuter rail and parking operations!
It doesn't matter...
whether certain operational divisions (of any agency) are run by private or public entities...there are plenty of selfish crooks involved in both, so let's stop pretending one is exclusively better than the other.
Privatization is always a
Privatization is always a good idea :)
Are those crickets I hear or is it
Jim Stergios air typing an editorial on privatization Nirvana?
This isn't really "news"
to anyone in the parking racket. When you hire a mgmt. company to run your garage/lot, they hire folks who barely speak English at $8/hour. With all the cash that pours through these places, does anyone really believe there will be no theft? It is RAMPANT in parking. The MBTA and the City would be better served to directly hire people and manage their own lots and garages. At least a solid job with benefits would be at stake, and might deter some from screwing it up. Places like LAZ, VPNE, ProPark, etc...they are going to do the least amount of work and pay the least amount of $ to staff to maximize profits. Staff eventually figure out work-arounds to the parking and revenue control equipment and start pocketing money. Its like a formula, works out every time. I guess the argument could be made that self managed employees would steal too, but its the same argument of hiring keolis to run the commuter rails. Look what you get.
English speakers less likley to be thieves?
Maybe you could help me out -- what does the language skills of the low-wage employee have anything to do with his or her propensity to steal?
You got the dependency tree
You got the dependency tree wrong. It's people who are willing to work for $8/hr that he is disparaging, and drawing a statistical concurrency with them being foreign-born and non-English speaking.
The important thing is that he thinks poor people are all thieves, not foreigners.
Sweet Jebus...
it is obvious you have never been poor, or mucked around in the trenches with the poor. As someone who has lived on or below the poverty level (ever lived out of a Saturn sedan? I have) I can say with full confidence that when you are being paid slave wage, the tendency to hustle goes way up. You take every advantage you can. Why? Not because you're "dishonest' or a "scumbag" but because maybe you wanna get fancy and NOT eat ramen for a night, NOT drink PBR, maybe buy a new pair of shoes to replace the haggard ones you've been rocking for several years. When a company pays their employees shit, the employees steal. This is not ground breaking economics here. I had the pleasure to work at one of the areas premier pop culture retailers for a while, in the warehouse. They paid absolute crap, from the office jobs down to the drivers and laborers (Guy in charge of payroll for the entire company made $14/hour). I never saw so much theft in my life. No one said anything about it either because we all knew the deal. I actually never stole from THAT job but I couldn't blame anyone who did. The point of my post is going over your heads. I'm not BLAMING anyone. I'm not DISPARAGING any class or ethnic groups (poor immigrant here). I'm merely stating an observable fact, which was confirmed by someone who works at a garage (I too am involved in the industry).
Why not just bite your tongue on subjects you know nothing about?
I'm a manager for one of the
I'm a manager for one of the above mentioned companies. What you say is almost 100% true.
I will say however, these low wages are typically driven by the lot owner, and not the operators. I would happily pay $15/hour if it meant getting some solid workers who cared about their job but my client is constantly asking me to lower operating expenses.In the MBTA's case, LAZ was contracted at a fixed $7.89m fee, and did not get a share of collected revenue.
At the end of the day, the lowest bidder wins these lots.
You r what u say u r
What more can you expect if you name your company LAZ?
Snark:-/ intended
Pretty common
Employee theft for those who deal in cash is pretty common. I remember years ago I had a couple of friends who worked at the Children's Museum and they racked up. These guys (like all others) get caught because they don't understand how an audit, or reporting of revenue works.
Last I used it, the lot at
Last I used it, the lot at Alewife was $7, cash only, with no tickets. I always assumed shady things were going on.
They replaced that system
They replaced that system with pay-on-foot machines in the lobby, which take cash and credit. Parking employees don't handle money any more.
Always pay only the amount on the screen
Growing up, my friend worked at a parking booth where the owner would manually compare all the parking stubs for the day against the till, in order to avoid theft. The workaround was to ask the patrons for some amount above what was actually owed. Back then the rate was 75¢ an hour. My friend would pretty much always round up the amount he asked for by 75¢ and if the driver questioned it, he'd look at the ticket again and say, "Oh sorry, you're right." You'd be surprised how much extra you can make at 75¢ a pop. (Later he got greedy and would ask for whatever he thought he could get away with, even if it wasn't even vaguely divisible by 75.)
Whenever
I have to pay for something shady (like parking, a long taxi/shuttle/Uber, etc.) I try to put it on a good credit card. That way if I find something wrong later, I have the option of disputing the charge.
Easy investigation to start
I realize that this would not lead to immediate proof of wrong-doing, but it might be a start. It's how any good detective-series hero would start.
-Get a list of all current or recently retired parking staff.
-Find out which one of them, or their sisters or girlfriends, recently bought a new Mercedes, Range Rover, or other car that would normally be outside what people with their (legal) earnings would own.
-This list is the starting point for the investigation.
-Now, maybe some of these folks have a high-earning spouse or inherited some money. Obviously they may have a legit ability to buy a $60,000 car.